Tiger

10Jul08

Inspired by a photo that accompanied an obituary of Emma Humphreys.  Published in Let’s Shout About It, an anthology to raise funds for support services for survivors of sexual abuse, and on ABCTales.com.

 

Tiger
(from a photo accompanying Emma Humphreys’ obituary)

Emma called you Tiger:
a big name for a little cat.

Her case changed the definition of provocation
to include accumulated violence.

You blink away from the sunlight:
outside is bright with trial and error.

She had blinked in the prison exit’s sunlight,
the brightness of her own flat.

Let’s count your tabby stripes.
Say fifteen for kittenhood.

At fifteen she ran away
to Nottingham’s inner city streets.

Let your sandpaper tongue wash
your dull metal-grey fur.

She used a knife on the pimp
about to rape her again.

Let’s count two more stripes
as you stretch onto your long spine.

She was sentenced to seven years,
but served ten.

You’ve no problem with appetite.
Over three years you watched her diminish.

Count thirty stripes of your silver.

        Emma Lee

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Tags: Emma Humphreys, Emma Lee Poems, Poems, Tiger